The Department of Energy’s environmental contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has started building its final supersized Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) at the nuclear property near Aiken, S.C.
Like its half-dozen jumbo-sized SDU predecessors, SDU-12 will be 43 feet high, 375 feet in diameter, and have a total capacity of 34.5 million gallons of saltstone grout, DOE said in a Sept. 15 news release.
There are also six smaller-size SDUs on the property.
BWX Technologies-led contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) is in charge of building and operating the SDUs.
“The SDU program is a phenomenal construction project, and it requires the teamwork of construction workers, subcontractors, engineers, safety professionals, planners, procurement and more to get the job done,” SRMC President Tom Burns said in the release. “SDU 12 stands as a testament to the innovative engineering and tenacious teamwork driving the liquid waste mission.”